At Bob Burns Golf, we take pride in providing a friendly, stimulating atmosphere both for those who are just beginning to learn the game and for those who are already committed to intensive practice and improvement. Our missions in teaching and advising are to enable people of all ages and physical conditions to understand the basic principles of the golf swing, and to aid each in fully understanding his or her potential as a golfer.
Continue scrolling downward to read about some of the notable devices we use in Video-Assisted Instruction, Computerized Swing-Analysis, and Custom Club-Fitting.
At Bob Burns Golf, we take great pride in extending personalized services to our customers. Thus our efforts to develop successful, individualized instructional programs are essentially inseparable from our concerns that each individual golfer—of whatever size or age or shape, or level of experience or ability, or physical condition—gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways in which the many types and forms of contemporary golf clubs and their component parts can (and should) be selected (and quite frequently, modified or customized) to fit the characteristics of his or her swing.
To these ends, we make regular use of numerous devices to aid in teaching and custom club-fitting. Some of these aids are peculiar and proprietary to Bob Burns Golf, while others reflect the most advanced technological developments of recent years. Among the latter are a computerized SPORTECH Swing Analyzer (most often used in conjunction with a video-camera), a P3 PRO GOLF SIMULATOR, a ZELOCITY launch monitor, a TOMI PUTTER-FITTING SYSTEM, and a GOLF TEK SIMULATOR DRIVING RANGE (for information on each of which, continue scrolling downward).
Video Assisted Instruction:
Some of our customers probably think we are addicted to the video-camera. We use it regularly—to create an initial and replayable base-line recording of our students’ habits and tendencies; to provide visual confirmation of the teacher’s diagnosis and suggested corrections; to aid in illustrating the kinds of detailed information being revealed by the swing-computers, the simulators, and the launch monitor; to create audio-video-tapes for review and study between and during lessons and practice sessions; to document changes and improvements in a student’s swing; and to pinpoint aspects of the swing that need continued development or refinement.
The SPORTECH Swing-Computer
Most often used in conjunction with the video-camera mentioned above, the SPORTECH swing-computer is a high-tech device that enables us to compile detailed information about a golfer’s swing, weight-distribution, weight-transfer, and swing-speed, as well as the characteristic distance and path of shots, and even the angle of the face of a club at impact.
We regularly use the swing-computer both in teaching and in custom club-fitting—more or less as follows: We ask a golfer to hit a number of shots with clubs of different kinds and styles of heads, with shafts of different flexes and flex-points (in both steel and graphite), and even with grips of different sizes and textures. The program on the swing-computer displays the results of each swing, and averages them for each club tested. We then compare those averages, and rank them in order of best fit. More often than not, we repeat the process, further comparing and contrasting clubs, and gradually eliminating those that produce the least desired results.
The swing-computer’s program is, thus, an invaluable tool for fitting a golfer’s clubs in an objective manner. It enables the individual golfer to participate in making decisions based on some confirmable results, rather than upon superficial appearance or feel or popular reputation. After we have completed a comprehensive swing-analysis, we then put together a detailed fitting-sheet in which we combine and correlate the statistics provided by the swing-computer with a golfer’s physical measurements. Only then do we select or modify or manufacture a set of clubs (or even a particular club) best suited to a golfer’s specifications, needs, and desires.
Only after we have satisfied ourselves that an individual’s clubs provide a reasonable fit, do we (or should we) get down to the kind of extended or refined teaching or consultation that will modify or correct a golfer’s stance or swing. Here, too, in teaching and learning, the information revealed by the swing-computer is invaluable, because the swing-computer reveals not only the initial or usual characteristics of a golfer’s swing but also (especially, perhaps, when the computer’s results are accompanied by video-tapes) the kinds of changes that often occur over the course of a season, or even over the course of a week or two.
The P3PROSWING Golf Simulator
At Bob Burns Golf, the P3ProSwing Simulator most often functions as an amplifier or refiner of the kinds of information revealed by the Sportech swing-computer. The P3Pro registers most everything covered by the Sportech swing-computer, except the weight-distribution in a golfer’s stance at address and the transfer of that weight during the swing. Beyond those two considerations, the P3Pro provides more and more-detailed information about a golfer’s swing and its results. The P3Pro enables us to create a visual and statistical record of, among other things, the tempo of a golfer’s swing, the speed with which the clubface hits the ball, the angle of the clubface at impact, the point of impact on the clubface, the height of a club’s heel and toe at impact, the distance of the shot, and (most notably) the degree to which the shot varies right or left from dead-center.
The P3Pro’s ability to predict and picture the shape of a shot is unparalleled. With the data captured from a golfer’s swing at the point of impact, the P3Pro calculates the shape of the shot and displays its flight-path, even to the nuances of a controlled draw or fade, on a large screen with a landscaped background.
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The ZELOCITY Golf Performance Monitor
With the aid of Doppler radar, the Zelocity launch monitor collects and records hundreds of thousands of data-points (100,000 per second) about a golfer’s swing and the resulting flight of the ball. The radar “sees” both club and ball throughout a golfer’s swing (before, during, and after the moment of impact) and tracks the ball as it flies downrange. The Zelocity’s patented algorithms process the stream of incoming data-points to produce vital statistics about the speed and launch-angle of the clubhead, the velocity and spin-rate of the ball, the distance of the shot, and the golfer’s power-transfer ratio. The result is the equivalent of a radar-video-tape of the swing and the flight of the ball.
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The Tomi Putter Fitting System (Putting stroke analyzer)
Putting may easily account for as much as 50% of your strokes on the golf course. In fact, there’s a sense in which putting is meant to account for 50% of the game. Don’t believe us? Imagine yourself (or more probably, a touring professional) playing 18 holes in what we call “regulation” par—that is, hitting every green in regulation (all par fours in two strokes, par fives in three strokes, and par threes in one stroke), and making par on each hole with two putts, for an even-par round of 72—36 “regulation” strokes from tee to green, and 36 “regulation” putts, a classic 50%-50% round—by the book, as we might say.
It’s pretty clear, then, isn’t it? For what ought to be statistically obvious reasons, you have a much better chance of lowering your scores by concentrating on your putting and your putter than you have by devoting your attention to your iron-play, your hybrids, or your driver. And yet the vast majority of golfers consistently neglect the obvious for the occasional pleasure of bashing a ball down-range with a club they use at most half the time they use a putter. And more than that, the vast majority of golfers, influenced by mass-advertising, seem far more interested in the prospects of changing or modifying or being fit for their drivers and irons than they are in comparable prospects that involve their putters.
And more yet, most golfers do not know that the shafts on most putters purchased off the rack (without professional assistance) are too long and, thus, ill-suited to their purchasers’ heights, arm-lengths, and body types, with the result that many golfers find themselves unnaturally and awkwardly trying to adapt their setups, their posture, and their putting strokes to the length, lie, weight, and feel of a putter that was ill-suited to them in the first place.
In both putter-fitting and teaching, we use The Tomi Putting System (putting stroke analyzer) to complement, amplify, and refine the information provided by our own initial checklist of 5 Putting Fundamentals and our more elaborate 10-Point Putter Fitting Analysis. With the Tomi, we measure the following elements of a golfer’s putting stroke: alignment at address, stroke-path, rotation of the clubhead, shaft-angle, speed of stroke, point of impact, and tempo. We then correlate these measurements with what we know of a golfer’s height, arm-length, body-type, size of hands, length of fingers, etc. to make informed recommendations not only about modifications or refinements in a golfer’s stance, alignment, grip, and stroke, but also about an appropriate style of putter (from classic blade to contemporary mallet) and its specifications (length, lie, loft, size of grip, etc.). A full putter-fitting session takes about a half-hour to complete; and an adequate, initial lesson in putting lasts 45 minutes or so.
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The Golf Tek Golf Simulator Driving Range
The Golf Tek Simulator gathers and tabulates information about a golfer’s swing and its results. It collects data-points on clubhead speed, clubface-angle, impact-point, rotation through impact, tempo, ball-spin, ball-carry, and what’s called a Solid Hit Factor. It tabulates and displays (via computer-graphics) the information provided by these data-points on two alternative wall-sized screens, one of which follows the clubhead throughout the golfer’s swing, and the second of which shows the shot traveling on a simulated golf practice range.
Not only does the Golf Tek Simulator calculate and display telling information about an individual swing and its resulting shot, but it gathers and averages information in the aggregate—so that, by selecting a separate table for the display of its aggregate functions, you may view all swing-data, with averages for as many as 100 shots, and comparative data for as many as 15 different clubs. Thus the Golf Tek Simulator is a notable aid to improving and refining your swing or to shaking off the winter rust.
But you should also know that the Golf Tek Simulator is of immense value in individualized club-selection and club-fitting. With the Golf Tek we can easily and graphically sort and compare the results of variations in the shafts of clubs (length, flex, kick-point, and weight) as well as variations in the performance of types, sizes, and weights of clubheads (driver A vs. driver B; hybrids vs. irons; classic blade vs. cavity or muscle-backed vs. game-improvement clubs; offset vs. reduced-offset vs. non-offset; standard vs. oversized; shallow vs. deep; high degree of bounce vs. low-degree; etc.) and even variations in the size and weight and texture of grips.
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With each of these aids and numerous others, we aim to give our students detailed information and instructions that, along with drills and exercises, will enable them to build repetitive golf swings and solid foundations for continuing improvement.
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